Latency is the total time delay in the transmission of a signal between two locations. Latency becomes an important parameter in video transmission for video conference systems, for example, because excessive signal delay can become noticeable and affect the quality of the conference.
Video conference systems typically employ video encoders to transmit data between conference sites via a network (e.g., a private computer network, the Internet etc.). Many video conference encoder systems are configured to reduce latency as much as possible, to prevent excessive and noticeable delay in the transmission. However, there is a point at which latency becomes unnoticeable, and further reduction of latency provides no noticeable benefit.